US drone attack leaves five dead in Pakistan

A US assassination drone attack has killed at least five people and wounded three others in Pakistan’s mountainous northwestern tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistani intelligence sources said the aerial attack targeted a compound in the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan on Thursday.

North Waziristan is considered a stronghold of pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan; the Pakistani army has been conducting a major offensive against the militants there since June 15.

On November 11, at least four people were killed when the US military conducted a drone strike in the same area. At least four people were also killed in a US assassination drone strike in the South Waziristan tribal region on October 30.

Figures released by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism show that only 84 people out of the 2,379 killed in US drone strikes in Pakistan from June 2004 to October 2014 were identified as al-Qaeda militants.

These figures are in clear contradiction with claims made by US Secretary of State John Kerry last May when he said, “The only people we fire at are confirmed terror targets, at the highest level. We don’t just fire a drone at somebody we think is a terrorist.”

The US carries out targeted killings through drone strikes in several Muslim countries, such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. Washington claims the targets of the drone attacks are militants, but local officials and witnesses maintain that civilians have been the main victims of such raids over the past few years.